Manky's Pop.

[Manky Monkey]

Build your trike in the living room!

[VALLEYSBOY]

your not far wrong there

[Manky Monkey]

Never gone quite that far, but I have sprayed a petrol tank in the spare bedroom -then had to completely redecorate afterwards. 

[tazet]

What a great day to be playing with the pop at Lunatics workshop. We've taken over 400 pictures so will take a while to sort through them.

Manky will be on line soon to fill you all in properly but just in case he forgets to mention. I did the first cut and did the whole roof length all by myself and the line was prety straight if I do say so myself 

[panthershaun]

 

[Manky Monkey]

Right, here goes then!
I bought my Pop, (which actually isn't a Ford Popular at all, but a 1953 Ford Anglia), from Neil on Ebay for £450 on the 25th February this year. Since then it's spent it's life being shunted from place to place until today, almost 8 months to the day since we collected it, we finally took the tarpaulin off, stood back & said
-"Hmmm, what're we gonna do with this then?"
I'd always wanted a pick up, but this ol' saloon just seemed too nice to cut up. After lots of hesitating & changes of plans & a Summer of checking out all the other Pops at various rod meets & shows though, I had to agree with PantherShaun that there's bloomin' 'undreds of Pop saloons out there -some very nice, some truly horrible, but very few pickups, particularly reasonably tidy ones. So the decision was made.
Taz & I travelled over to Wales & picked up, ( ), a steel Morris Minor pick up cab back, which Shaun assured me would be a pretty close fit on the Pop body, for 20 quid. At the Spring NSRA swapmeet we bought a Ford Prefect bakalite dash, a "banjo" steering wheel, (either original Pop, early Landrover or early Moggy Minor), plus a set of 4 black taxi cab wheels, which turned out to be a pair of 16 inch taxi wheels & a pair of 15 inch unknowns, maybe Austin Devon or similar.
I've also got a pair of Sherpa van axles, (same bolt pattern as the wheels, with a vintage looking beam front fitted with disc brakes).
The final part in my inventory was a 1700 Ford Consul engine with 3 speed column shift gearbox, but that's now up for discussion.
The MMMotors crack engineering team assembled at Lunatic's rural workshop this morning to assess the build. Loony & PD, Janie & Dave, plus Tazet & I. Dave immediately threw the plans into disarray by telling me he's been offered not one but two engines -a V8 Rover with auto box & Rangerover headers & a Granada V6, 150 quid each. He wants one & I can have the other. Bugger. So what do I go for?
So- first job. Unbolt the body & lift it off the chassis to get some idea of what we're facing.     

[Manky Monkey]

We took so many photos today I've actually made up a gallery for them & added some explanatory words in the Motors, 4 Wheels section of the main site here:

Pics of the Pop

So won't bother posting too many here. Read this, then go have a look.

[panthershaun]

V8 or V6 gotta be better than the consul lump

[Manky Monkey]

Yeah, but which Shauny?

The previous owner had already taken the body off & temporarily tacked it back on with a few L shaped brackets & nuts & bolts, so no great dramas in removing it.
Before we did though, we took the precaution of hoiking the doors back into line with the bodywork & tack-welding them shut. Then we used some lightweight steel tubing, (an old set of garden gazebo poles!), to brace the interior -2 in a cross shape from corner to corner, plus a horizontal one at the back & another at the front.

[Manky Monkey]

Up, up & away! 

[Manky Monkey]

The 50 year old body's considerably firmer than mine!
The chassis ain't in bad nick either, but looks so flimsy. It's made from U shaped channel, so we'll plate the open 4th side of the rails to make a much stiffer square box section.

[Manky Monkey]

I plan to drop the centre section of the chassis by 6 inches, by "Z ing" it at both ends. That'll drop the cab unit down, giving it 5 inches of ground clearance -essential in Basingstoke, land of the speed hump & pothole, with the two ends staying at original ride height. Dropping the chassis with the body on it, rather than channelling the bod over the rails, means it'll retain full headroom inside. Next job will be to chop 4 inches out of the roof height.
The Sherpa axles will add 3 inches to the width either side, but as we're not bothering with the original front wings & there'll be a new pick up bed on the back, it won't matter.
After unbolting all the unwanted original Pop parts from the chassis, a test drive was obviously needed.

[Manky Monkey]

.

[Manky Monkey]

.

[Manky Monkey]

Yup, that's fine, but the brakes might need a little work.

So that was us done for the day really

...but isn't it tempting to start cutting that body up...